


If A Salamander Crawled Across His Chest

by SprungSick



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Basically he's in exile and Im giving him That Good Depressive Episode, Depression, Gen, He doesn't die but he certainly tries to, Hurt, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean he always does with me but now it's f l o w e r y, I'm not vibing, Like I normally love doing comfort but n o p e, Mmm mm angst angst, Not Beta Read, Slight Dissociation, Suicidal Ideation, The dude is in exile guys like r i p, This was exclusively written in the middle of the night, Tommy suffers, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), We ain't having a great time woooooo, just hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28093062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SprungSick/pseuds/SprungSick
Summary: The ocean screamed for him, crawled as far as it could and yelled into his ears.On a grassy step a safe distance away, he watched. Moved his finger lightly.One day.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), TommyInnit & T h e s e a, TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF) & Everyone, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Yeahp yeahp nope nope
Comments: 31
Kudos: 238





	If A Salamander Crawled Across His Chest

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Attempted Suicide 
> 
> This is kinda dark y'all please be safe
> 
> Also I have no idea where that title came from but y'all are stuck with it have fun

He should probably start his tasks for the day. 

He clutched his fingers into the air, the action unhurried - no energy propelled his hand, no life brought his fingertips together in their slow open close. Nothing. 

The nerves in his skin grazed against his face. He reveled in the action, in the gentle path his own nails discovered, and wondered when his movements became so slow. 

Being alone - his only company the ever rhythmic sea as it desperately scrabbled to swallow him whole - left too much time for himself. With hours to pass, he could afford to sit and stare. He could afford to take minutes where only seconds should have been wasted. 

Nothing mattered enough to make time speed up. 

The feeling of his own fingers feather-light against his ear. He should probably start his tasks for the day. 

Instead, he looked up - agonizingly slowly, drearily too quick - and studied the light blue sky. His fingers roamed. They brushed against his forehead, his nose, his lips, his neck.

In a way, he liked the feeling. In another, he didn't feel it at all. 

Even as they curled against his face, his temples, his collarbone, he knew they wouldn't penetrate the thick shield around his mind. They wouldn't make the boring sky interesting. Numbly, he wondered how much time had passed - he probably wasted too much, contemplating just how little the sky meant. He knew that in the end, it didn't matter. 

As with everything else he did, he stood up slowly. 

He kept his footsteps languid, letting the itching brush of grass against heels attempt to spark any kind of energy in his hollow void. A memory of annoyance slipped through his skull. He couldn't replicate it. 

In front of him was a tree. Without a reason, he pressed his nail into the bark and scratched a long line. 

He didn't need a reason anymore - a useless, nonsensical thing that he couldn't care to create. His fingers continued to scratch long, parallel lines. One at a time. The bark underneath his nails - despite being the only thing about him even close to resembling vitality - felt dead, rough. He didn't bother to dig it out. 

After a while, his fingers decided to carve words into this tree - as if they were worthy to make a mark into the world. The dull, distant thud of disgust barely kissed his hands before disappearing. Nothing forced him to feel anguish for its departure. Therefore, he didn't. 

His mind slowly drudged up memories of old, of paintings and words and buildings. Said to be creations of man to desperately immortalize themselves, to fight against their inevitable and obsolete fate. He glanced down at his words. They didn't feel like a fight. 

'Wretched' one read. He enjoyed the visceral reaction that came from its presence - he didn't feel much when the emotion disappeared. He decided he liked that one. It deserved to stay. 

'Love' another said. A fuzzy one, one that came from weakness. It also should remain. Maybe then he would remember it. 

'Try' one more whispered. A flicker of tightness surged up his chest, the sensation of something pushing to break free. Eventually, it gave up. He didn't care enough to scribble it out. 

'Home' the last cried. Gentle heat prodded against the corner of his eyes. His forearms experienced the same rough shell his fingertips had grown numb to. He looked down at the word. Thought. 

He should probably start his tasks for the day.

He let the last one stay.

The ache in his legs became just a touch too biting for him not to do anything about it. Reluctantly, he walked back to where he sat before - same path, same steps - and let himself balance along the abrupt line where dirt met sand. The roaring, oh so cradling sea, tried again and again and again to meet him halfway. His fingers cradled his cheek. They couldn’t feel. 

He considered counting the waves in the same way he had counted footfalls just a few days before. In the end, he decided against it. Tasks such as those - distractions from the numb, forever repeating reality he currently stared in the eye - no longer held any value. 

He let the crawling waves wash away his thoughts.

Its scream as it rushed towards him - its terror-inducing, foreboding cry - did little more than soothe him. It melded with the sounds of far-off birds. He wondered how something so dead could harmonize with something so alive. He wondered whether he could do the same. The thought washed past him before it could sink in. 

Someone came to his side. He didn’t bother to check who it was - he could compare the sounds of their steps to the repertoire inside his head, but the energy needed exceeded all he had. They were saying something. Harsh, abrasive words; they harmonized well with the living, worked in a natural tempo and chord - he still didn’t like them. They sunk into him and slipped away. Just like the dead waves. 

He wasn’t wearing any armor - just the same, dirtied clothes he had worn for weeks. Instead, he unsheathed his iron sword and let it drop into the sand. The sword’s weight was too heavy for him to carry anymore, the harsh frost of metal too disconcerting against his nerves. He felt slight peace in its disappearance. 

No matter who had visited him - he still let his eyes remain where they wanted, trained at the rolling sea - they probably wanted to take his sword. They could have it. He didn’t care. 

A large, calloused hand pressed against his shoulder. A vague feeling of happiness accompanied it - as long as the touch stayed, the feeling would as well. Perhaps the gentle cradle would coax something out of him, coddle him through the thick layer trapping him from the world. 

A rough shove. His head landed just on the sharp step, dirt unmoving against his hair and face open to the salty air. He thanked whoever pushed him. Now, he didn’t have to keep himself upright. 

More jeering words. A few grew in volume and teamed with someone’s hands to push and prod and pull. As if they were trying to gain a reaction from him. His finger moved lightly against the dirt. 

They tried to move in front of him, take up the position the sea had already filled. He closed his eyes. He didn’t have enough energy to waste on connecting figures to memory or remembering to feel scared. Even as alien fingers pulled at his eyelids and forced them half-open, his vision had gone unseeing - he didn’t need to be asleep to be blind to the world. They eventually released his skin, let his eyes flutter shut. 

He didn’t open his eyes again. He fell unconscious outside, bonding to the malevolent sea. 

*** 

He woke up in his tent, the decaying blanket he didn’t remember rocks against his skin. 

Gently, with the strain of moving worlds rubbing against each of his worn muscles, he crawled and collapsed just outside his obtruding shelter. He breathed in time with his dark dark sea. 

He should probably start his tasks for the day. 

The crashing wails screamed to close his eyes and succumb. He listened. 

*** 

The next day, he managed to get through the portal. 

Angered heat blared against his eyes, fire screeching as it fought against itself. Grunts, screams, hisses, yells. The Nether growled and melted, destroyed and razed. 

Many thought that it was dead. He knew it was alive. 

No dead thing would fight so desperately to survive. 

He found himself on his own stone bridge, the material already burning hot from existing. Eventually, he laid down. He let the broiling stone warm his side as he tipped half-off the ledge - there was no danger, he balanced himself just right. His finger moved back and forth against the surface of the stone. 

Down below, the blood of the Nether swirled in its own life. 

He liked it. 

It moved chaotically, no rhyme or reason to its gurglings - no rhythmic crashing, no lulling songs. It did what it had to stay alive. The bright, near-blinding sight left his eyes dry and tired. He supposed that was the consequence, the casualty of its continuance. 

No creatures tried to attack him, tried to burn or hurt or kill. Perhaps they knew he was made of the same fire as them. 

He respected them in a way - he couldn’t imagine having to adapt to such hostile conditions. He felt familiar to them in a way - he too couldn’t survive without the burning swell inside his chest. 

Another ghast flew past him, sobs just another thing for his ears to not register. It looked at him as if he had become the bridge. 

He wondered whether he should tilt a bit more. Return himself to the life-giving magma he might as well have come from. Revert back to his blazing, most innate core. Become the thing he always was - fire. Too hot to touch, too destructive to ignore. Too alive to be dead. 

His finger moved lightly - nothing else did. 

He had become too tempered for that fate. He would likely evaporate when he fell, not combine. 

The skin he recognized as his smoldered as he thought, the slight tingle white noise as he contemplated his fate. To who he would die to. The lava or the sea. 

He didn’t want to burn into dust. He didn’t care to drown. 

Apathy hugged gentler than aversion, he decided. 

With a sigh he didn’t breathe, he said his goodbyes - the lava wouldn’t be the one claiming his soul. He wondered if the distant feeling inside his chest was the one others sobbed over while they held a dying friend’s hand. Perhaps he too should cry. 

The dryness of his eyes told him to sleep. He let his world go dark.

Distant shouting - sung by the same voice which harmonized best with the grass and the bulls. Grass collapsed in the Nether. Bulls died. The voice sunk into his ears and seeped away just the same. 

Forceful, uncomfortable hands dug under his arms and dragged him into the stone. Behind his closed eyes, he didn’t care. They repositioned before shoving him into the air. 

He fell asleep in the fiery abyss of the Nether. Let himself relish in the comfort of its destruction - one last time. 

He should probably give up on his tasks. 

*** 

His fingers were in the sea. 

Exhausted - weary of it all and ready for his finale - he had crawled from his tent to his foe. Fell. Sand pushing against every part of his grime, he let the ocean have a taste of just what it would consume. 

The waves seemed frenzied by the touch, slamming harder and harder against what little tether he had offered. Louder now they roared, the noise blocking out any other thought. His finger cut through the desperate sea spray. 

They made progress. Water clawed against his forearm, receding in failure only to claw back up again. He used what little strength he had left to meet it halfway. 

Furious, frantic waves continued to try and try and try. They soaked his rags, his chin, his arms. Scratched his cheeks in the same way he did. Slammed into his chest, attempted to break the bone and steal his setting core. 

Finally, a huge, encapsulating wave. The last effort, the final tug. His world became the all-encompassing water, the roaring in his head, the scrambling of its touch. 

He was submerged.

The ocean had won. 

He felt almost weightless, suspended in his own captor as they whisked him deeper into their domain. He didn’t bother to hold his breath, to fight. Both physically and mentally, he had no more energy to give. 

For some reason, the ocean had calmed. 

No longer did the water roar in his face, no longer did it hurt. It seemed almost pacified, satisfied merely with having him in its grasp. Feather-light touches - ones he had tried to copy without any of the intent - cradled his body. Urged his eyes to open. 

He listened. Somehow, he almost felt safe. 

Up above light filtered onto his legs, too far away for him to try to grasp one last time. Down below darkness settled onto itself, uncaring of his frozen middle ground. It all settled, pleaded him into stasis, pleaded for him to calm - as always, he listened. 

His skin lost its contrast to the ocean, lines blurring between himself and his foe. 

He wondered if he could even call it a foe, considering how he had helped it in its goal. 

The ocean asked him to close his eyes. Asked him to sleep one last time. He listened. 

The raging, tumultuous sea finally claimed his soul. 

In return, it blessed. 

*** 

He woke up. 

He never expected to. The very action didn’t make sense - it conflicted with his memories, with his very intentional actions. 

Sand clung to his salted stiff clothes. Different sand than the one he was used to - more refined in its grains, less harmful. In the distance, he saw the large wooden docks his own friend had helped construct. His mind couldn’t understand. 

A face peered into his vision. Wilbur. Or Ghostbur, he supposed. His yellow sweater covered greyed out palms as they gently pushed, prodded, implored. His face - always so expressive, he remembered, always so kind - was pulled into concern. Downturned lips and eyes. Translucent skin. 

He felt different. Heavier at his core, diffused everywhere else. 

Gently, slowly, his fingers lifted to his finder’s pale cheek. His skin melted off like wax, continuously trailing down his forearms and dissolving into mist. He stared at it, watching his tinged blue fingers shift and drip and change. 

For the first time in weeks, he felt himself cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Mmmm yes I'm such a good writer I use metaphors and parallels in my writing because I'm so good mm yes yep 
> 
> Im genuinely just vibing you know but like vibing not vibing you feel me? 
> 
> Anyways I hope you enjoyed me indulging the urge to make everything vague;;


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